These states have seen the biggest crackdown on immigration since Trump returned to office
Rounded up and detained in facilities largely in the South, a map of where tens of thousands are being held in states across the U.S. paints a striking picture of the vast Trump administration's hardline immigration crackdown.
With Immigration Customs and Enforcement detention facilities at capacity, The Independent's map shines a light on where 43,759 people are being held in the centers across the country as of February 8 — and more than half do not hold criminal records, according to data collected by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse.
Many will have to wait in the facilities for weeks and, in some cases, months before their cases proceed.
Detention centers in Texas and Louisiana have by far the most number of people overall, with one Mississippi center — privately-run Adams County Detention Center in Natchez — holding over 2,100 detainees on average, according to the data.
Border states have detained the most people for years but under the first Trump administration, experts noted a shift to facilities in other southern states, reflected in the most current data.
Texas has detained the most, with 12,259 being held in ICE detention centers across the state on average. Eight facilities in Texas out of the top 20 nationwide were each holding more than 800 people for ICE, according to the data.
The Lone Star state was followed by 6,878 in Louisiana, 3,024 in California, 2,382 in Georgia, 2,300 in Arizona and 2,169 in Mississippi.
After Mississippi's Adams County center, run by private prison company CoreCivic, the facility with the second largest population was the South Texas ICE Processing Center in Pearsall, averaging 1,680 detainees.
There are also more than 188,000 families and individuals in the system who are in the Alternatives to Detention programs of January 11, meaning they are being monitored via ankle monitoring, home visits and checks in at ICE offices.
But the ICE figures 'only scratch the surface' in Texas because of the number of migrants also in Customs and Border Protection detention and the state's Operation Lone Star program, explained Daniel Hatoum, senior supervising attorney at the Texas Civil Rights Project's Beyond Borders program.
Hatoum described Operation Lone Star, the border security initiative launched by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, as the state's attempt to carry out immigration enforcement via a constitutional loophole.
'They charge folks with things like trespassing, specifically trying to target immigrants with state-level criminal violations, and so you have a lot of detention coming from that as well,' he told The Independent.
President Donald Trump has the mandate to go after migrants without criminal records after rescinding several Biden administration limitations on ICE arrests.
Among the thousands in lock up, nearly 55 percent have no criminal record, the data shows.
'Often in some of these facilities, they hold people who have been convicted of crimes alongside people who are there simply because of their immigration case,' said Jesse Franzblau, a senior policy analyst with the National Immigrant Justice Center, which provides legal services for people detained throughout the Midwest.
While the White House has declared all undocumented migrants 'criminals,' there is no law that makes it a crime to live in the U.S. as an undocumented migrant and it is treated as a civil violation by the courts.
'Given that immigration detention is civil in nature, it really doesn't have anything to do with anybody's past infractions,' Franzblau told The Independent.
The reason for the concentration of detention facilities in the South is down to a number of states phasing out immigration centers. With that comes a myriad of challenges for the people being held.
'A lot of these facilities are far from cities and that makes it difficult for access to legal counsel and for people to able to be in communication with family members,' Franzblau said.
'It raises a lot of issues with these facilities being placed in remote regions in this way,' he said. 'They are concentrated in the South and in states where you have a particularly strong influence from private prison contractors,' the analyst added.
Immigration advocacy groups have long warned about the conditions inside detention facilities where people face 'egregious abuses.'
While these abuses - such as holding detainees in solitary confinement and depriving them of medication - were also prevalent in previous administrations, there are fears that things will deteriorate more rapidly inside facilities under Trump.
'ICE remains committed to ensuring that all those in the agency's custody reside in safe, secure, and humane environments under appropriate conditions of confinement,' an ICE spokesperson said in a statement to The Independent. 'ICE continues to review its immigration detention centers nationally, monitoring the quality of life and treatment of detained individuals among other factors relevant to the continued operation of each facility.'
ICE under the Trump administration is only just getting started. Its network of detention centers in county jails and for-profit prisons had around 38,000 beds at the beginning of February, according to internal Department of Homeland Security data. Tom Homan, Trump's border czar, wants 100,000 detention beds.
The ICE spokesperson told The Independent that its 'significant number of arrests' do require greater detention capacity.
ICE is reopening an immigration detention facility in New Jersey, it was announced Thursday, after securing a $1.2 billion contract lasting 15 years with private prison company The Geo Group.
The Delaney Hall facility in Newark will have 1,000 beds, making it the largest in the New York metropolitan area.
It's a sign of what's to come, campaigners said.
'What we're seeing now is something like over 110 percent capacity in ICE detention,' Hatoum said. 'When you have overcapacity in detention, in prison, anything like that, conditions worsen.'
'The Trump administration wants to detain more folks,' Hatoum warned. 'Homan has called for things like 'tent cities' and so the concern is that we're trying to build potential tools quick, without the resources...and the conditions are going to be so terrible that people are harmed.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
33 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Diplomatic win for UK hosting US-China trade talks
Sky News understands that the Trump administration approached the UK government to ask if it would host round two of the US-China trade talks. This is a useful 'diplo-win' for the UK. The first round was held in Geneva last month. News of that happening came as a surprise. The Chinese and the Americans were in the midst of a Trump-instigated trade war. President Trump was en route to Saudi Arabia and suddenly we got word of talks in Switzerland. They went surprisingly well. US treasury secretary Scott Bessent and his Chinese counterpart He Lifeng, met face-to-face and agreed to suspend most tariffs for 90 days. But two weeks later, the Trump administration accused Beijing of breaking the agreements reached in Geneva. Beijing threw the blame back at Washington. On Wednesday, Donald Trump and Xi Jinping spoke by phone. The Chinese claimed this call was at the Americans' request. Either way, the consequence was that the talks were back on track. "I just concluded a very good phone call with President Xi of China, discussing some of the intricacies of our recently made, and agreed to, trade deal," President Trump said this week. From that call came the impetus for a second round of talks. A venue was needed. In stepped the UK at short notice. Beyond being geographically convenient, UK government sources suggest that Britain is geopolitically in the right place right now to act as this bridge and facilitator. The UK-China relationship is in the process of a "reset". Other locations, like Brussels or other EU capitals, would have been less workable. Crucially too, for the UK, this is also potentially advantageous as it seeks to get its own UK-US trade agreement, to eliminate or massively reduce tariffs, over the line. Talks on reaching the "implementation phase" have been near-continuous since the announcement last month, but having the American principals in London is a plus. Sideline talks are possible, but even the presence of the US team in the UK is helpful. Read more from Sky News:Man wrongly deported from US to El Salvador has been returned to face criminal chargesMore than 40 'narco-boat' drug smugglers arrested in major police sting For all the chaos that President Trump is causing with his tariffs, he has instigated face-to-face conversations as he seeks resets. Key players are sitting down around tables - yes, to untangle the trade knots which Trump tied, but this whole episode has pulled foes together around the same table; it has forced relationships and maybe mutual understanding. That's useful. And for this next round, between superpowers, the UK is the host. Also useful.
Boston Globe
33 minutes ago
- Boston Globe
Healey touts state tuition savings, criticizes federal cuts to Pell Grants
Overall, MASSGrant Plus Expansion program saved more than 34,000 Massachusetts students an estimated $110 million in the 2023-2024 academic year, the statement said. More than 7,730 middle income students saved an average of $3,856 each, according to data from the state Department of Higher Education, the statement said. Advertisement In the same statement, Healey urged the US Senate to reject Pell Grant cuts included in the federal budget reconciliation bill recently passed by Republicans in the U.S. House and supported by President Trump. The proposed cuts and eligibility restrictions would results in 42,000 Massachusetts students at public institutions losing $57 million in funding each year, according to Healey's statement said. 'Massachusetts is home to the best schools in the country, but we need to make sure that they are affordable for all of our students,' Healey's statement said. 'That's why I took action to increase financial aid at our public colleges and universities, which has already lowered costs for tens of thousands of students.' The drastic cuts proposed to the Pell Grant program would 'roll back the progress we have made and increase costs,' Healey said. Advertisement 'This is bad for our students and bad for our economy, as it would hold back our next generation of workers from being able to afford to go to school,' she said. Healey announced $62 million in new state funding to expand the MASSGrant program during a ceremony at Salem State University in November 2023. The new funding covered the full costs of tuition and mandatory instructional fees for Pell Grant-eligible students, and as much as half for middle-income students. Middle-income students are those whose families earn between $73,000 and $100,000 annually in adjusted gross income. The program was retroactive to the start of the fall 2023 semester for Massachusetts students at the states public institutions, including its 15 community colleges, nine state universities, and four University of Massachusetts undergraduate campuses. Funding for the expansion of the program also drew on $84 million Healey and the legislature had set earmarked for financial aid expansion in the FY24 budget, Healey's office said at the time. 'The dramatic enrollment increases our community colleges have seen over the last two years make it clear that free community college and expanded financial aid is a game changer for students in Massachusetts,' Luis Pedraja, chair of the Community College Council of Presidents, and president of Quinsigamond Community College said in the statement. 'The proposed Pell eligibility changes would be devastating to our students' ability to afford higher education and the community college presidents in Massachusetts urge the Senate to reject this ill-advised change,' Pedraja said. Education Secretary Patrick Tutwiler said he feared the impacts proposed cuts could have on students who struggle to afford college. Advertisement 'Low-income students deserve to go to college just as much as their higher income peers, and these changes are going to take us backwards – increasing dropout rates and leaving students saddled with more debt and no degree," Tutwiler said in the statement. Tonya Alanez can be reached at
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Is a $5,000 DOGE stimulus check a real thing? What we know
In February, President Donald Trump said he was considering a plan to pay out $5,000 stimulus checks to American taxpayers from the savings identified by billionaire Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Are they happening? No official plan or schedule for such a payout has been released, and a decision on the checks would have to come from Congress, which has so far been cool to the idea. And there have been questions as to how much DOGE has actually saved. The idea was floated by Azoria investment firm CEO James Fishback, who suggested on Musk's social media platform X that Trump and Musk should "should announce a 'DOGE Dividend'" from the money saved from reductions in government waste and workforce since it was American taxpayer money in the first place. He even submitted a proposal for how it would work, with a timeline for after the expiration of DOGE in July 2026. "At $2 trillion in DOGE savings and 78 million tax-paying households, this is a $5,000 refund per household, with the remaining used to pay down the national debt," he said in a separate post. Musk replied, "Will check with the President." "We're considering giving 20% of the DOGE savings to American citizens and 20% to paying down the debt," Trump said in a during the Saudi-sponsored FII PRIORITY Summit in Miami Beach the same month. DOGE has dismantled entire federal agencies, wiped out government contracts and led the firings of tens of thousands of federal workers, leaving many agencies struggling to continue operations. DOGE checks? Elon Musk dodges DOGE stimulus check question during Wisconsin rally: Here's what he said. Fishbeck suggested that the potential refund go only to households that are net-income taxpayers, or households that pay more in taxes than they get back. The Pew Research Center said that most Americans with an adjusted gross income of under $40,000 effectively pay no federal income tax. They would not be eligible. If DOGE achieves Musk's initial goal of stripping $2 trillion from U.S. government spending by 2026, Fishback's plan was for $5,000 per household, or 20% of the savings divided by the number of eligible households. If DOGE doesn't hit the goal, Fishback said the amount should be adjusted accordingly. 'So again, if the savings are only $1 trillion, which I think is awfully low, the check goes from $5,000 to $2,500,' Fishback said during a podcast appearance. 'If the savings are only $500 billion, which, again, is really, really low, then the [checks] are only $1,250.' However, while Musk talked about saving $2 trillion in federal spending during Trump's campaign, he lowered the goal to $1 trillion after Trump assumed office and said in March he was on pace to hit that goal by the end of May. At a Cabinet meeting in April, Musk lowered the projected savings further to $150 billion in fiscal year 2026. Musk left the White House at the end of May when his designation as a "special government employee" ended. DOGE, the advisory group he created, is expected to continue without him. That depends on who you ask. On its website, DOGE claims to have saved an estimated $175 billion as of May 30, "a combination of asset sales, contract and lease cancellations and renegotiations, fraud and improper payment deletions, grant cancellations, interest savings, programmatic changes, regulatory savings, and workforce reductions." The site says that works out to $1,086.96 saved per taxpayer. However, many of DOGE's claims have been exaggerated and several of the initiatives to slash agency workforces have been challenged in court. DOGE has been accused of taking credit for contracts that were canceled before DOGE was created, failing to factor in funds the government is required to pay even if a contract is canceled, and tallying every contract by the most that could possibly be spent on it even when nothing near that amount had been obligated. The website list has been changed as the media pointed out errors, such as a claim that an $8 million savings was actually $8 billion. On May 30, CNN reported that one of its reporters found that less than half the $175 billion figure was backed up with even basic documentation, making verification difficult if not impossible. Some of the changes may also end up costing taxpayers more, such as proposed slashes to the Internal Revenue Service that experts say would mean less tax revenue generated, resulting in a net cost of about $6.8 billion. Over the next 10 years, if IRS staffing stays low, the cumulative cost in uncollected taxes would hit $159 billion, according to the nonpartisan Budget Lab at Yale University. The per-taxpayer claim on the website is also inflated, CNN said, as it's based on '161 million individual federal taxpayers' and doesn't seem to include married people filing jointly. This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: DOGE dividends: Will American taxpayers get a $5,000 check?
